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[docme]

between students in the online classroom who sign their posts, God Bless and substandard work?

I've noticed that in introductions, if a student posts a great deal about God and religion (in courses that do not deal with God and religion)...their grammar, writing skills, critical thinking, etc., lack any amount of substance.

My thought is that they think if they post that, I will know that God is on their side and will not deduct points.

Anyone else see this online?

[nemesis]

In my fairly extensive online experience -- neither personal religious faith nor outward expression correlate to a student's quality of work.

Mind you, if a student signs off "God bless," just be grateful it's something positive like that. Too many of us have to put up with "@#$! you" or something like that.

[alshealy]

I believe it's called "observer bias"

[zharkov]

I teach business-y courses, and although I have never seen this stuff, I would point it out as not reflecting business professionalism.  That doesn't mean I would take points off, but if the response avoids the discussion question, say, I might.

[the_myth]

Oh, I think there's a small inverse correlation.

The more a student laces his/her professional rhetoric with Godspeak, the poorer quality the work tends to be.

Of course, so few students do this, that it tends to really stick out when it happens.

This is not to deride religious students; it's more a criticism of the ones who lace their professional rhetoric with it.  It does tend to suggest an inability to realize the appropriateness of it for the [virtual or otherwise] classroom.  This is also why it tends to be connected with the bad grammar, weird punctuation, and misspellings.

[starfleet_grad]

In my state, there are many, many churches that preach and teach that all educational personnel are unpatriotic commie traitors who want to inculcate our children in a one-world government, atheist ideology, take away our guns rights, and sell the country to the terrorists at the drop of a hat. No, wait, that's the Republican Party here. I crack myself up. Anyway, one recent development I have noticed is that some students appear to inject religion into their work so that they can later claim that they failed because the teacher/professor was religiously biased. There have been newspaper reports suggesting that some churches tell their adolescent and young adult members to write about religion on purpose to obtain proof of how prejudiced others are.

The complaint is that students are prevented from expressing their faith openly, but the true agenda is that religious statements should always go unchallenged and that students should be allowed to pester others about religion and church. Likewise, their ideas about creationism (intelligent design, whatever) should be allowed to stand without close examination. Anything less will be seen as proof of irredeemable wickedness an un-Americanism.

When I was getting my Ph.D., one of our classmates persisted in inviting others to attend her church. When the topic happened to come up during a class discussion, I finally spoke up that if I already attended a church and she kept inviting me to her church, she was sending the (in)direct message that her church was better than mine. To her credit, she responded, "I have never thought of it that way," and knocked off the invitations.

Even if students may put an innocuous close at the end of their messages, my experience has been that there is an agenda behind it, however subconscious it may be. The religious lobby here is powerful, and we have to be extremely careful when religious topics are brought up in papers. If I were you, I'd be particularly thorough in explaining my grading, and I'd keep copies of everything.